The Fusion of Fire- Part VI
by HaVIC
Summary: The resistence and a strike squad assemble for the invasion of Earth while the fighter battle still rages on. Please R/R, thanks.


The Fusion of Fire- Part VI  
  
Chapter 10  
  
As told by the War Council Warrior, Fred "Jaguar" Riendhound  
  
"And get those harbor parties to Proxima Centauri, now!" I ordered to the senator angrily as the transmission was closed in my private quarters. I have always loathed the senate in the ruleing body. They have absolutley no concept of battle, yet they have half of the control of the armed forces of Lapios. No wonder I had sworn that I was going insane.  
  
The situation looked bleaker and bleaker by the second for getting the invasion done before the week's end. It was clearly obvious that the yeerks were getting ready for some kind of invasion due to their bladeship layout, probably Andalite, and our entire tactical despostion was based soley off the reliance of a surprise attack. Which didn't happen. The Theta destruction is a good example. I still can't imagine that the senators believe that we will have Earth in 2 days! Arrogance at it's finest.  
  
Fourtunatly for me because the senate would be in my hair about the expeditionary force being sent immidiatley, I started to gather the Elite SS Operatives (essos)and create strike teams to prepare the way for the landing craft. We had contacted Condor, Amazon and Incinerator down on Earth about landing spots, and a peculiar spot was chosen. From what Condor told me, it contained a massive mining plant surrounded by deep swamps. It sounded a whole lot like the battles at Joiren near the turn of the millinia, which Condor had been to in the D1 Effect. Interesting choice.  
  
It was a good spot, actually, because the essos with the status of Aquatic Tacticals could fight far better than the ones trained in the standerd way, and that most essos are trained in swamp warfare for reasons unknown. Maybe it was Condor's whole idea, who knows, but he does have about twice the power as I do, and could do it any time he wanted, but thank go he made it standerd, because we were going to rely on that for our chance at victory.  
  
I got up from my chair in my quarters and walked out down the door down the corridor to the briefing room. When I arrived at my destination, several men dressed in white overcoats lowered chainguns at my chest. What the hell?   
  
"Identification," one of the men asked. Wait a second, these were the Q12's, weren't they? Designed to annoy the crap out of official personel? I'd kill Buttons for that.   
  
"War Council Leader Fredrick Rienhound, Ecstacy. Envoy for Rapture."  
  
"Authorized. Enter freely, Councilor," the Q12 said politley and stepped away, raising his chaingun. Phew. I walked inside the large briefing room to see the 50 essos I had chosen specifically for this endeavor standing up in four horizontal lines, stiff as trees. Faces emotionless. Backs rigid. Perfect.   
  
"You may be seated, gentlemen," I said, still somewhat surprised at the attention to proper ediquette that these essos had taken the extra time to perform. Something rarely done in these days, but widely appriciated by seniors officers like me.  
  
The essos sat down in their seats and looked straight at me as I began to brief them on their hit and run mission ahead. "Essos, you know why you are here. To path the way for the true invasion force to land smoothly on the surface of the conquer Earth. The exact landing spot of the invasion force is yet to be decided, but it is near where your targets lie. We have designated your strike spot with the TDS-1 crew who have contact with the resistence, and they have given us the coordinates of the location, dubbed Swamps of Joiren," I said, waiting for a gasp or murmer, but absolutley nothing came from the group.  
  
I continued then showing a 3 dimensional representation of the area to the essos, finally breaking their annoyingly strict soldier code. "As you can see here, a massive-"  
  
"With all due respect, sir, the idea of a 50-man strike squad landing even 100 meteres from a complex that large is suicide," the youngest esso said. Expecting a yelling, which I would have done under different circumstances, but recieving a calm remark, the esso seemed rather surprised.  
  
"Yes, the complex is impossible to penetrate with a 50-man strike team if that was the entire mission perameter. There is a prominent resistence down there, you know, and we have arranged the combined attack to be synchronized with each other to blow the-"  
  
The same esso stood again, "200 refugees carrying sticks, will that do us any good?" This guy was starting to get on my nerves, but I never get more relish than that of countering his debuke of my statements. Who was he?  
  
"Oh, no, they won't even be carrying sticks. Tell me, have you ever heard of operation bio-switch?"  
  
"Yes, what is your point?" He demanded. I swear, I was ready to court-marshall him.  
  
"There is an Andalite technology in which one of my friends has duplicated that allows a being to shapeshift into any animal in which s/he acquires the genetical substuctural components for. We have implanted the neccessary biomechanical machinery of our technolgy into the bodies of a total of 8 people, me, Sarah Killdeer, Adam Jones, John Leeroy, Peter Quin," several essos murmered, "...Fred Halloway and 2 other officers in which I have strict orders not to reveal their names. The resistence members are in possesion of the Andalite form of the technology, and a squad of 208 swamp-creatures fighting for our side ought to be rather interesting, no?. Any questions?" I asked, staring hard into the defiant essos' eyes. He face turned pale, and he slowly sat down.  
  
"Yes sir, actually I do," the appointed squad co-commander, Major Derek "Piker" Carapace said.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Sir, even by some miracle our strike force DOES take control of the mining facility, what do we do from their? Our landing craft has no where to land within the 'Swamps of Joiren', and we can't possibly fit an entire transport in the fighter checkpoint inside the mining facility," The Major said, concerned.  
  
"Good point, Major, and that puzzled us for a while before reaching a definite desicion. You see, several islands big enough to land a transport lie in the swamps, which for some reason didn't show up on our sensors but did on the resistence's. We land our strike team there, and rendez-vous with the 208 swamp creatures somewhere in the western end of the swamps, where we will be situated. Is that all?" No one spoke out, and their strick code of silence had seemed to ensue once again. "Good. Go to the transport bay. I'll be waiting for you there. Dismissed," I concluded, and the essos got up and walked out the doorway. I too did so, and started out to the transport bay.  
  
***************************  
  
As told by the President of the Human Race, Peter Quin  
  
Alpha Lead, Elation  
  
"Boogies kamakazi, evasive action, re-route power to standerd," Alpha four said, as we saw the suicidal bug fighters come racing at us. I pressed the reset notch above my head, and the thrum of my engines ensued once more.   
  
I had to do this right, and the first time I could do it. The bug fighters have little engine speed and dracon power, but they are maneuverable little buggers that make them deadly kamakazi craft. If I had punched burn then and there, the bug fighter would have simply changed his course and blow me to smithereens. Not good. So, I had to accelerate right at the exact moment when the bug fighter could not reverse it's course. Right about, not now..... just a bit closer, you son of a-, yes!  
  
ZZZOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!! You never know the feeling of speed until you are going zero to 300 mph in under a second. If it had been just in normal conditions, the acceleration would have killed me, but the anti-g mechanisms kicked in and reduced the enourmous pressure. The bug fighter was helpless in it's suicidal ploy, and went shooting behind me. I reduced throttle and slowly arced around back in the direction of the bug fighter. He was in my sights. Unfourtunatly for me, the yeerks had anti-targeting ECM jammers installed on their ships, so I could not lock onto the blasted thing no matter how hard I tried to. Wait a second...  
  
"Elation, this is Alpha one, jam their signals," I said.  
  
"Why not do it yourself?"  
  
"These babies don't have a strong enough signal. He's anti-targeting me. Do it," I ordered.  
  
"Yessir," the relay squad said, while I switched off the transmission. Bastard. Those few moments could cost me the killing shot. And they did. Before the targeting signals got back on line, the bug-fighter arced around and started to try to ram into me. Wait a second, he wasn't trying to ram into me!  
  
TSEWTSEWTSEWTSEWTSEW! The Dracon cannon of the bug fighter tore straight through my right wing, sending me flying into a unstoppable spinning role through space. No way I could save the ship, but I could eject easily before the anti-g mechansisms gave way.   
  
"Apha squad, I'm hit beyond control. Ejecting. Send emergency rescue vehicle down," I called out, started to feel the dizzying effect of the g-forces as the anti-g's started to give way.   
  
"Roger that, sir, helps on the way," I heard the voice of Alpha 2 come in.  
  
I reached for the ejection lever to the right of me, or at least, I tried to. The g's were getting stronger and stronger by the second, and my hand was thrust immidiatley back to where it was. Oh man, come on. I tried in futility to reach the lever, but I couldn't. The g's were simply too much for me to move my arm. I looked at the g-counter. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11! More and more piling on, too much to take. 12, 13, 14!!!! It seemed as if an entire building had been dropped on top of me. Even with the back-up g-suit, I knew I could not survive. My vision dimmed, and the world around me slowly faded out from existence. Goodbye, world. It was fun while it lasted.  
  
Chapter 11  
  
As told by the War Council Leader, John "Condor" Leeroy of Mars  
  
"2 hours and this place will be ours," I said looking at the foggy, mashland that lay before us. We had taken a MagLev here at supersonic speeds, and the stime was only about an hour. Pretty good, in my opinion. The Animorphs and Pete and Greg had rounded up every standerd operative in the resistence and brought them here through simliar methods. We contacted the Ecstacy and worked out the logistics of the combined assault, and Jaguar approved of it. Yes. My work was just about to get easier. Die, yeerk filth.  
  
"You don't think? 208 of us and your 50 swamp guys against, that," Rachel responded, gesturing towards the swamps that lay ahead. "No sweat."  
  
I smiled. "So, are your troops eqipped with everything they need? The weapons that Incinerator and Amazon built, and the DNA of swamp creatures?"  
  
"Yes, but we could only, for some reason, tap into the yeerk databases and download modern reptiles, unlike yourself and some of us. Wonder how megaraptors do in the swamps, probably pretty bad. But that's all we got," Tobias reported.  
  
"Good. Shall we slice?"   
  
"After you, Condor," Rachel said with a smile. I began to concentrate on the raw power of the prehistoric crocidile DNA that lay within the depths of my gentic code, and within a minute, I was fully crocodile. A 53-foot one, that is. Incinerator had morphed his only morph, an anoconda, and Amazon morphed the positivly collosal quetzocotalus pterosaur. Not much good in the swamps, but she could dive bomb any patrols that threatend our assault.   
  
With my enormous crocodile head, I turned back to see the grotesque army of reptiles that we were commanding. Lizards, komodo dragons, crocs, tuataras, snakes, and tarapins advancing behind me, ready to go into the mists of the swamp. Army from hell, as Buttons would put it. And I would do all I could to make the army from hell put it's name to the test agains the yeerks.   
  
Resisentence! You may have already heard about me in rumors, and I cannot verify anything about me, the Condor and my two partners, the Incinerator and the Amazon. I can tell you one thing. The evil of the yeerks has not only killed my family, but my ancestry and every person in my backround. I have just as much reason to fight as you, and I shall. I am human, as you know, and I belong to a group of free humans who has created a massive fleet that is currently bombarding the yeerk ships in orbit around Earth. In, say, 5 minutes, a strike team of 50 soldiers will land in the swamps, and we will fight with them to take over the mining station. From there, our massive army will land in the area, free from any AAA fire and whatnot. Your home will be restored, and Earth will be freed and the land will be re-made, I spoke vigorously to the crowd of reptilian beasts.   
  
A megaraptor bound in front of my massive body, Condor, for this battle only, you are in command.  
  
Thanks, Jake.  
  
No prob.  
  
I soon directed my attention to the crowd again. Onward!  
  
A positivly gigantic sound rose of, mixing every sort of warble and chirp and screech and growl of the animals in the army. The fog started to surround us even before we charged into the swamp, and when the group charged, or slithered, or walked quickly in, the ground thundered with the sheer weight of our masses.  
  
This wasn't going to be a battle.  
  
This was going to be a massacre.  
  
But of what side to whom would be the victor?  
  
**************************************  
  
As told by the War Council Leader, Fred "Jaguar" Reinhound  
  
Esso Squad Ghoul, Commander  
  
"Piker, I really need to talk to you for a moment," I said while putting on the skin-tight suit and applying the anti-friction liquid onto the surface of the suit.  
  
"Yessir?"  
  
"Not now, call me Jaguar until surface, or if we arn't so lucky, perihelion," I said, smiling. He managed to smile a bit as well. "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about a pacjib promotion."  
  
"What-, w-what do you mean by that sir?"  
  
"JAGUAR! Gosh, you technically are only a rank or two below me right now, and for this day only, I'm forfieting my rank as geurrilla warfare leader at the council to you so now we are equals for the time being. Anyway, You know about that technology I was talking about in your briefing," it accidentally came out more of a statment than a question, "and I was wondering if you would like to take the synthetic human form for your squad. We use a device called the pacjib to do this."  
  
"Well, I don't know, s-, Jaguar. I think it would be interesting to have multiple bodies, and the like. He thought for a moment. "Does it hurt?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Hmm. OK. I agree."  
  
"Excellent. If you prove your worthiness, you can even join ROTR, but that is a differant story. I will consult Bio-Warden Killdeer if it is alright after the battle. Speaking of battle..." I said, letting it trail off.   
  
Our super-cloaking transport, the Galaxia-class Genoa, had started to descend slowly into the mists of Joiren, shrouding the craft in fog. I took my microbe-mask and pulled the jelly-like, microbe-filled armor on. The microbes started to seep into every nook and cranny of the exterio of my skull, creating a second skin, in a way, but 500 times more protective. A jelly lens closed over my eyes, which blinded me for a second, then provided me with a stream of data. Infared vision, enhanced visual perception, ultraviolet, and even a OBVP linking me to every member of Strike Squad Ghoul's eyes whenever I wanted to. I took a specially modified chaingun from the rack to allow it to operate under water and stuck it on my hip. My suit almost melted it into the suit's mass using some sort of N-dimensional matter transfusion, and I could simply retreive it at anytime. I did the same thing with a back-up, several grenades and even a water propulsion mechanism.   
  
I walked slowly out towards the main hatch at the lead of Ghoul squad, hand at my right waist to be ready for calling up the matter when neccessary. I love technology. We descended slower, and slower, and slower, until we came to a halt. What the-  
  
"Why aren't we landing, pilot?" I asked.  
  
"Can't. Our landing coordinates were set for here where there is an island, but there isn't. Stangest thing. Geological activity, maybe, but this is weird. Gonna have to jump for it."  
  
"How long a fall?"  
  
"3 meteres. Easy. Okay, hatch is opening."  
  
In front of me, the gigantium-alloy hatch slowly opened for me to see the ten foot drop into the swamps. I leaped out, and my fall ended in a large, SQUISH! Piker came next, and soon all of Ghoul squadron in it's entirety was bobing in the muck of the swamps. I switched my bio-mic transmission to the pilot. "Thanks for the lift!"  
  
"No prob." The hovering transport soon lifted off and went into the mists again to sneak through the yeerk lines and back to safety. I turned around to see Ghoul squad again.   
  
Suddenly, and urgent message came in from an esso no more than 10 feet away from me. "Sir, my gieger counter is going off the charts!"  
  
"Switch all back-up power to anti-radiation, and some of your lifesupport. Besides, the manuefacturers of these suits think we are gluttonous-, oh holy shit!!!!!!! Dammit!!!" I swore madly for one reason. One very bad reason. One reason that I did not want to ever happen, but for some strange twist of fate, it did. Piker obviously also thought of that disturbing image at the same time as I did because of the look on his microbe-mask.  
  
"GET THAT FREAK SHOW OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!" He screamed.   
  
The resistence was doomed.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Stay tuned for the first battle for Earth and some interesting developments in the Andalite catergory. 


End file.
